Let Go

Crappy business, the music business. The problem is, it can’t help but turn you into a cynical old bastard.

Take Avril Lavigne’s debut Let Go, for example. The whole things smacks so much of record company shite that it makes you despair, as if someone broke into the lab and made off with the alt.rock gene. Contrived isn’t the word for what is a clear attempt to take a seventeen year old kid and turn her into the anti-Britney.

Still, stop being a grumpy old sod for a moment, and a certain naïve charm starts to emerge. Of course, it’s hugely overproduced and far too knowing for its own good, but Lavigne hasn’t got a bad voice or line in songwriting. ‘Sk8er Boi’ makes up for in energy what it loses in the dreadful title and lyrics. ‘Mobile’, meanwhile, is a fine attempt at anthemic teen rock.

And that’s where Avril Lavigne is at. This isn’t meant for the world weary music fan still trying to recapture their first thrills, this is a rock junior starter pack. Given time and a bit of space, Lavigne could well turn out to be a bit of a find. Here’s just hoping that she doesn’t get chewed up and spat out before then.